A brooding Brontë is just the thing for an autumn evening, and this latest revival of Charlotte’s Jane Eyre hits the spot with its atmospheric staging. It’s suitably gothic, for sure, but with a modern update. The minimalist set is nothing more than a stack of black bleachers with large speakers on the steps. [...]Here, it’s all done in a highly stylised way. The actors play several characters: we see them as young pupils, clergymen, teachers and servants. At one point, they brilliantly march in unison under dramatic monochrome lighting.The stage changes little – there are the bleachers and then the attic, with the set rotated by the actors. But the way these elements are used is incredible – there’s a striking scene featuring Jane’s bridal veil flowing down the stairs. At one point, the stairs are alight. The speakers glow to reflect the mood, with Jane’s inner monologue projected through them.Olivia Marcus plays Jane Eyre as a down-to-earth Yorkshire woman, all too aware of her plainness. Gabriel Akuwudike makes a commanding Edward Rochester, while Robyn Rose-Li, as Bertha, is mesmerising to watch as she sings, cries and laughs manically in the attic. However, this Victorian portrayal of mental illness is uncomfortable through a modern lens.The first 20 minutes of the show feel rather long – Jane’s miserable life on repeat could have been condensed. But then the pace really picks up. The staging is incredible, and the music works well. At a couple of points, I couldn’t quite hear the dialogue, but it’s a minor point.It’s certainly the year for a Brontë revival, with Emily’s Wuthering Heights taking the box office by storm. Now it’s Charlotte’s turn, with two major theatrical productions of Jane Eyre running. This version makes a compelling case for revisiting the classics, pairing gothic gloom and dark secrets with bold, inventive theatre.
Lily Dyble’s production of Jane Eyre at the Rose Theatre, Kingston neatly avoids all the potential pitfalls of adapting a classic for the stage that many people will have read at school for English Literature GCSE. It doesn’t distract the audience from the heart of the story with lots of period detail and lavish stage effects, nor does it treat the book like a Ming vase – something precious that needs huge caution in the handling, if it is to be done right and avoid disappointing lovers of the original novel. Nor does it go in for all-out subversion and hold the text accountable for attitudes that we now find questionable, thereby spoiling what made it enjoyable in the first place.Dyble fully trusts the text but never takes it as read. She treats Charlotte Brontë’s novel with love and respect, but not reverence. The direction and design have a modern, contemporary look – Khadija Raza’s original and effective costumes are very definitely not 19th-century, but there is absolutely no suggestion that it is set in the present. Above all, this adaptation maintains the spark of the original, very much assisted by the strong chemistry between Olivia Marcus’s Jane and Gabriel Akuwudike’s Rochester.This production is based on an adaptation by Sally Cookson, Mike Akers, and The Original Company that was first performed at National Theatre in 2015. It retains much of Charlotte Brontë’s original text at its most powerful but is far from slavish in its treatment. There is a huge amount of plot to get through, and it is impressive that this treatment never feels rushed or superficial.Anna Yates’ set looks stark and simple. The stage is almost completely filled with a black staircase, containing 10 huge hi-fi speakers that glow with their own light in the darkness and can be moved about to suggest different locations. Any cynical thoughts that this was done purely to provide a cheap, adaptable, but always highly effective set are displaced by some surprises in Act Two (no spoilers here). At moments of crisis, different acoustically adapted voices interrupt one another to depict the overwhelming nature of Jane’s emotions. Composer and Sound Designer Joseff Harris does much to enhance the mood without providing distraction. The doubling of many roles (in some cases tripling) is very appropriate, as the audience is made to see that the memories of her oppressors are very much still alive in Jane’s head.This production gives full weight to the high degree of bullying that Jane experiences, both from her aunt and her family, and then at the ghastly Lowood School, a receiving house for unwanted girls, designed to humiliate and terrorise them into submission but also to train them to be governess fodder (as happened to the three Bronte sisters). The stark power imbalance faced by 19th-century women, especially those with no money of their own, is vividly conveyed, with the pupils reminiscent of the unfortunate women in The Handmaid’s Tale. Remarkably, Jane never sees herself as a victim and doesn’t indulge in feisty defiance for the sake of it. When she takes a stand, it is always on a matter of principle, and she remains rock solid in her determination. Olivia Marcus plays the part with a blunt Yorkshire accent, which is unexpected but absolutely right. [...]The attraction between Olivia Marcus’s Jane and Gabriel Akuwudike’s Rochester is subtly but effectively conveyed. Akuwudike’s Rochester is surprisingly young for someone wounded by a disastrous first marriage. There is a glib and charming shiftiness – but with significant vulnerability underneath - that helpfully makes him less of the cliched brooding romantic hero. Kate Kordel doubles effectively as the bullying Aunt Reed and the kindly Mrs Fairfax. The production gives proper attention to the first Mrs Rochester, vividly played by Robyn Rose-Li, and makes the most of the many resemblances between Brontë’s novel and that other Great Romantic Classic, Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.The question of how to stage a story as classic as Jane Eyre is always open to debate, whether you are faithful to the original or offer something new and contemporary. While this production is perhaps far less radical than it might have initially seemed on the surface, it is still a nuanced and effective rendition of the classic story. (Patrick Shorrock)
Among the cast, Andrea Gatchalian offers a convincing portrayal of the ailing Helen as well as the irrepressible Adele, Kate Kordel pairs an initially unbending Aunt Reed with a Mrs Fairfax who also comes to see Jane’s qualities over time, and Leo Wan as Mason makes the complexities of this story rather clearer than is sometimes the case.Both central roles are extremely well cast, with Gabriel Akuwudike’s Rochester, despite the RP accent, a wholly convincing anti-hero. Opposite him, Olivia Marcus embodies both the Jane of the book and the rather more forthright and powerful figure of Cookson’s adaptation. Her portrayal is quite rightly the centre of the production and her spirit and determination are totally convincing in this impressive performance.It’s good to see work of this quality being produced by regional theatres, and creatives being given the opportunity to work on mid-scale productions. After playing at Colchester and Kingston, the production tours to Newcastle and Chester. It’s an inventive and absorbing production, well worth seeing if it comes near you. (Chris Abbott)
Olivia Marcus' (Bad Education, These Demons and The Mirror and the Light) portrayal of Jane is wonderfully spot on and a far cry from the comedy acting she presented in Bad Education.And the London-born actor's Yorkshire accent was almost perfect and super fitting for a plot set in West Yorkshire.Marcus should be incredibly proud of hearself in being at the heart of the production and producing a believable portrayal of Jane from childhood (she is only 10 at the start) to becoming a woman.And her depiction of the infamous romance between Jane and Rochester, played by Gabriel Akuwudike (Hamnet and Shetland 10), has the audience both on the edge of their seats in that typical 'will they, won't they ' manner, and swooning when the pair eventually make out.The chemistry between Marcus and the characters is electric and a wonderful depiction of the old-school love story.On that note, Akuwudike plays Rochester excellently, doing a brilliant job of portraying the traditional stoic and mysterious yet oddly charming male love interest that often appears in similar love stories. [...]However, I must say that Andrea Gatchalian, who plays Helen and Adele in Dyble's production, stole the show for me.Beginning the production as Helen before swapping to Rochester's French ward Adele, I was amazed at Catchalian's ability to make her child characters believable and to mimic the Scottish and French accents that her characters adopt, so perfectly.While her portrayal of Helen almost brought me to tears, the actor's depiction of Adele was a firm favourite of mine, with her ability to make the audience laugh in a play that explores the power imbalance between men and women of the 19th century and themes of mental health.Another showstopper for me is Robyn Rose-Li, who plays Bertha. Despite having one scene, her dramatic yet heartbreaking monologue depicts Bertha's mental health struggles so authentically that it is almost scary. [...]Dyble's production as a whole is incredible as it intertwines moments of heartache and fear and religious undertones with laughter, friendship, love and musical elements, which to my surprise had me bobbing my shoulders up and down rhythmically, while also exploring themes of mental health and romance as well as following Brontë's feminist plot.
It all begins in February, when Emerald Fennell, whose millennial sensibilities have a unique resonance with the digitally native, released Wuthering Heights. The flashy Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi-fronted film heaved its bosom to more than $240 million at the global box office, along with a rare prize: mainstream popularity. It further proved its cultural credo by becoming a flashpoint on Reddit and Letterboxd, where one review noted: “It's an adaptation that feels like a 14-year-old skimmed the book and jumped to her own conclusions without any true understanding of the novel.” [...]It’s not, necessarily, that the story is fanfiction—though that genre has been part of the Austen and Brontë universes for decades (see the Jane Eyre rewrite The Green Glass Sea [can they mean Wide Sargasso Sea?!] and the Pride & Prejudice inspired Bridget Jones’ Diary). [...]Plus, a whole slew of books. For the Brontës, there’s This Dark Night: Emily Brontë, a Life; Charlotte Brontë’s Life in Clothes, and The Invention of Charlotte Brontë. [...]For the un-indoctrinated, the contrast between the writers—the Regency-era Jane Austen, author of six books, and the Victorian Brontë sisters, who published six novels between them—has deep roots. Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre, once described Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as: “An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face.” She concluded, “I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.”The two writers never met. Austen died in 1817, the year after the Charlotte, the eldest Brontë, was born, and their books offer markedly different pleasures. The three sisters (Emily and Anne followed Charlotte) wrote Gothic fiction and poetry. Austen satirized upper and upper middle class society’s conventions. Secrets, storms, and the wife in the attic haunt Jane Eyre, while Pride and Prejudice has pompous clergymen and Mr. Collins’s “excellent boiled potatoes.” Austen’s jokes expose the absurdities of courtship and class. Confessions and scandals may momentarily deviate from polite society, but a happily ever after is always a return to the mien. By contrast, the Brontës create worlds far beyond the mannered ton’s scope, both emotionally and geographically.That division is real, but it can also flatten a much broader literary landscape. Writers like Ann Radcliffe and Frances Burney—whose popularity in their own time might be comparable to the fame that Rebecca Yarros or Emily Henry enjoy today—are less likely to appear on a modern reader’s list. Austen and the Brontës, meanwhile, have become shorthand for different kinds of romance: one witty and social, the other dark and intense. The ability to reduce the stories to appealingly simple distinctions may help explain why it travels so well online, but that multi-media popularity is nothing new.In fact, just on the movie front, it’s nearly 90 years old. Pride & Prejudice was first adapted in 1940 with Greer Garson and Lawrence Olivier (a lost television series came two years earlier). The Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine-fronted Jane Eyre came in 1944, and ever since the writers have been constantly in our lives on the screen. [...]The Brontës have their own route into contemporary readers’ lives: Tumblr. Julia Cancilla, a Gen Z writer, found her way to Wuthering Heights through arty accounts on the famously emo social media. She first encountered the novel in quotes and illustrations but didn’t watch any of the film adaptations for a while. “I don’t even know if I really liked it when I first read it, but eventually I did and loved it,” she says. “The Austen stuff, it’s warmer, so it took me longer.” Though Mr. Darcy’s brooding gets to her. [...]In a 2005 New Yorker review of Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice, Anthony Lane described the film as one in which “Jane Austen has been Brontëfied.” He pointed to its windblown, misty romanticism, then wondered whether audiences could still see Austen clearly after centuries in which “the spirit of romance, and the role of the body within it, have evolved out of all recognition.” To him, Joe Wright’s adaptation felt like a collapse of the two genres. The end result was aesthetically unfaithful to the source material. Perhaps that’s true, but looking back, it’s unclear whether that was a feature or a bug. The books don’t merely live on as portals to a different era— though as Subbana’s experience proves, they do that too—they’re constantly rediscovered and remediated though Hollywood, fanfiction, and, now, TikTok. It is not faithfulness to the original that made Jane Austen and the Brontës immortal, it’s their eager adoption by each new generation.All of the new media inspired by the authors this year means that 2026 is a prime moment for Gen Z to have their first young adult understandings of the novel. Hopefully, they will then soon have their own turn to create their own turn to adapt and re-frame the original text. If history is anything to go by, we shouldn't have to wait too long to find out. (Dorothy Scarborough)
Sometimes what you need is the simple thing done well.In a year that's given us aggressively new takes on everything from Homer to Bronte, director Georgia Oakley (Blue Jean) has turned to Jane Austen and boldly dared to do something straightforward. (Boris Jancic)
And I opened my phone to see a critic complimenting the yearning romance as what Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights should have been, which made me realize how much modern filmmaking flattens classic literature about women into just one thing. It all becomes young women in dresses, traipsing through fields and falling in love—nevermind that Jane Austen is no more similar to Emily Brontë than Mel Brooks is to Christopher Nolan. (Caroline Siede)
In early 2026, Wuthering Heights has viewers in a hot debate over whether it’s a good or bad adaptation of Emily Brönte’s [suc] classic novel. While the steamy Jacob Elordi costume drama may be debated over its quality, there are other adaptations of famous books that are far worse. (Brianna Zigler)
Jane Eyre, 1847Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre follows its title character from a difficult childhood to her position as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she becomes drawn to the secretive Mr. Rochester. Jane’s independence and moral conviction shape the novel’s gothic romance, while Thornfield’s hidden history gives the story an undercurrent of suspense. A limited series could let both sides of the story unfold at a deliberate pace.Jane’s determination to claim a life on her own terms helped make her one of literature’s most enduring heroines. Her story still resonates as a coming-of-age drama about class, gender, love, and self-respect.The novel has inspired many film and television adaptations, including a popular BBC miniseries in 2006. A new BBC series starring Aimee Lou Wood as Jane is now in development, giving audiences another chance to see Brontë’s heroine and her gothic world reimagined for television. (Abby Shewmaker)
‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily BrontëEmily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights centres on the turbulent relationship between Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff and Edgar Linton. Their choices create conflicts that extend beyond the original generation, affecting their families and the children who come after them.Like East of Eden, the novel explores the way love, resentment and family loyalty can become difficult to separate. Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar rather than Heathcliff sets in motion a series of consequences that affect both families, while Heathcliff turns his grief and anger into a sustained campaign of revenge. His actions ultimately draw a younger generation into conflicts they did not create.The comparison with Cathy Ames is also useful, although the characters are fundamentally different. Catherine Earnshaw is not defined by the same coldness or manipulation as Cathy, but both women make choices that have profound consequences for the people around them. Wuthering Heights shares with East of Eden an interest in relationships that resist simple definitions of love or hatred, as well as the lasting effects of choices made within one generation. (Chonx Tibajia)
Translated into English by David McKay, the storytelling remains engaging despite the narrative’s length and multiple complex plotlines. Daanje’s narrative style will be instantly recognisable to readers familiar with Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. The book seamlessly channels classical, 19th-century Gothic traditions, weaving together overlapping layers of myth, history, and obsession. (Rishita Misra)
Saturday, 17th of October, 18:30 hBrontë Birthplace, Posh ParlourThe Brontë Birthplace is delighted to welcome BBC presenter and journalist, Reeta Chakrabarti to the Brontë Birthplace for an intimate interview discussing her debut novel, Finding Belle, and the influence the Brontë sisters have had on her work.Finding Belle explores belonging and identity, and what it means to work out who you are without the usual support of family around you.
Where pornography once trod, horror has now become the genre that infiltrates and apes all others. With a host of out-of-copyright cartoon characters recently grave-robbed for not-so-fresh IP, now classic literature is apparently fair game for a gruesome glow-up, in this case, Emily Brontë’s regular GCSE-botherer. But Becca Hirani’s laboured reworking makes the book’s gothic subtext crashingly, jugular-spurtingly textual.As in the novel, wide-eyed Mr Lockwood (Ross Townsend-Green) pays a courtesy call to his brooding landlord Heathcliff (Sky Cheema) at Wuthering Heights. But this time, his sojourn is more like Jonathan Harker’s at Dracula’s castle; everywhere he turns, the shrouded phantom of Heathcliff’s beloved Catherine Earnshaw (Elle O’Hara) is lurking, and she leaves an extra dollop of gore on the windowsill in her famous nocturnal apparition. The tetchy host doesn’t do much to put Lockwood at ease – even before he’s trapped in the house by a bubo-inflicting malady. Between the hallucinations, the surly servants, and the weird absence of Heathcliff’s rumoured son Linton, he begins freaking out that it’s a different kind of moors story he’s stumbled into.Hirani puts undeniable effort in getting her plot points to line up with Brontë’s – even if most of the characters, including poor old Lockwood’s horse, meet a much grislier fate. Rationed out in snippets of Catherine’s diary, the confidences of housekeeper Nelly (Nicola Wright) and more random supernatural flashbacks involving Lockwood, the manor’s backstory is rather garbled, though with the OTT hook of Heathcliff as an 18th-century Yorkshire Ripper. Rather than amping up the camp, as the likes of Kate Bush and Emerald Fennell did in their takes on the novel, Hirani plays it straight and dour, mystifyingly so, given the extra stranglings, slashings and pitchfork-impalings she’s chucked in.At the same time, diffident acting undermines the film’s claim as pure slasher fare: Townsend-Green’s jumpy turn feels as if he has strayed out of Jeeves and Wooster, while, despite the Rasputin looks, windy-voiced Cheema is too loose to convince as Byronic bad boy. For much of the runtime, we’re left with too little that makes his conversion to homicidal mania credible, until the last-minute lowdown on his Hellraiser-like scheme for his ward, Cathy (Anna Coupé). Reanimating the corpse of Brontë in this rickety way, this update not only feels pointless, but short on self-awareness or fun. (Phil Hoad)
That said, Gordon counters the narrator’s status by showing the ambitious, ruthless, envious Charlotte in anything but the best light, full of withering slights and maternally over-protective of Anne in particular, refusing permission for a posthumous re-print of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall (and editing Emily’s poems for publication after her death to boot).Jess Murray’s Emily is an undiluted firebrand, with a temper and potty mouth, but somewhat underwritten by comparison with Anne and especially Charlotte.Nick Patrick Jones’s Branwell can be heard shouting at his father in the background and in his infrequent appearances he feels like a ghost in this play, even before he is consigned to that status.Alongside Jones, Jon Cook, Pamela Gourley and Maggie Smales are on multi-rolling duty, Smales taking the honours with her spoilt child, coconut-clip-clopping carriage driver and biographer Elizabeth Gaskell.Claire Morley’s witty, wily and waspish production is played out with fiery pace and passion on Richard Hampton’s three-sided set of suspended wheat sheafs, page after page torn from books, three boxes bedecked in yet more words and the backdrop of a frame filled with flowers.At its base is a sign reading “Liar” that Stafford’s Charlotte then places around the neck of Rhodes’s Anne, and yet not everything that Charlotte says can be taken as the truth. Literary licence, maybe; playwright’s impish, knowing humour, certainly.The sisters are even more fun company than in Lip Service’s Withering Looks, full of surprises, sassy putdowns (not least of Jane Austen’s face being on a bank note) and sisterly interplay, played out to a soundtrack of Self Esteem, Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish snippets. It could have been deeper, it could have been darker, but that is the one story that has been told before.On reflection, all the Brontë sisters can be seen as the underdog of the title, sisters with blisters, but fighting against cramped writing conditions, the Yorkshire chill that did for their health, and the inequality and cold shoulder of the book world’s stuffed shirts. The “other” here is as much the other side of their story as a desire to put Anne in the spotlight.“Young women judge older women more harshly than anybody else…they are conditioned to,” says the spiky Charlotte, in one of her jibes delivered so deliciously by Stafford, whose outstanding performance is befitting of a professional stage.
‘We moved to Derbyshire when I was 11, so I never took it for granted.‘As a teenager I romanticised the views. Artistically, I loved the idea of a solitary figure against these dramatic backdrops. I studied romanticism at school and college and loved stories like Jane Eyre. I’ve carried that through into my painting in more recent years; the focus on a solitary figure. I think my paintings are quite romantic, but they’re set within the home, with these fabrics and patterns as backdrops rather than sweeping landscape views.‘We used to go rock climbing at Stanage Edge, and Black Rocks near Matlock, which I still do sometimes when I go home to visit my mum or dad.‘Who knows – perhaps having that perspective of climbing up and looking straight down from a height has also subconsciously influenced my more recent paintings.’ (Laura Wells)
Elsewhere, it’s down to questions of interpretation. Willder despairs that so many film-makers have tried to force a love story out of the toxic contortions of Emily Brontë’s “sadistic, gothic revenge horror” Wuthering Heights. (John Self)
This new version of Austen’s 215-year old debut novel is from the pen of Australia’s very fine writer, Diana Reid. She’s played it safe, as has director Georgia Oakley (Blue Jean) A queasy, dynamic camera lingers on the natural world – spiders on stalks, rain on cobwebs, lilies on ponds, light through trees. There are close-ups of unmade-up skin, pores, freckles and long ratty hair – the emphasis on authenticity. But the feature doesn’t have a distinctive tone or voice, unlike Fennell’s Wuthering Heights or Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version of that book. Those films had a strong directorial stamp; this one does not. It unspools a little flatly. Audiences have now been trained to expect something more from their historical lady shows. (Nikki Gemmell)
by Emily BrontëRetold in easy Swedish by Andreas PalmaerBannier CarlsenISBN: 9789179814908 (ebook)ISBN: 9789179814915 (paperback)May 2026Svindlande höjder hör till den engelska litteraturens mest välkända klassiker och är ständigt aktuell, nu senast som storfilm med med Margot Robbie i rollen som Catherine Earnshaw.En kväll kommer mr Earnshaw hem till sin gård med en pojke han plockat med sig från gatorna i Liverpool. Hittebarnet Heathcliff har svårt att finna sin plats i familjen och slits mellan hatet till fosterbrodern Hindley och kärleken till fostersystern Catherine. När mr Earnshaw dör och Catherine gifter sig med en barndomsvän blir hämnden Heathcliffs enda mål i livet.
In her new biography of the unknowable Emily, This Dark Night, Deborah Lutz doesn’t commit the prime biographical sin of trying to make Brontë too easy to understand or relate to. Instead, she asks more questions than she answers.For this reason, while some readers may be frustrated by the paucity of new facts or explanations for why Emily was the way she was, for others (including this reader) this vagueness is the very reason for the book’s success. Weighing in at a mere 264 pages (before notes), This Dark Night is not the door-stopper that habitual readers of biography might be used to. The fact of the matter is that Brontë didn’t live very long (she died of tuberculosis at age 30), and very few traces of her short life remain. Much of what we “learn” here is speculation, gleaned from the poetry, prose, and fragments of writing—sometimes literal scraps as well as minuscule productions that Lutz calls “paper crafts”—that she left behind. [...]Hedging language (such as would and may) predominates here, as Lutz tells us what life in the parsonage was like and describes Emily’s day-to-day tasks, which included “turning” clothes (reversing and restitching them so the less-worn sides faced outward), peeling potatoes, and feeding the dogs, as well as her role in the famous imaginative worlds of the Brontë siblings.Lutz also has to rely on this hedging language when exploring Emily’s intellectual formation in these years. She makes the assumption that the Brontës’ mother, Maria, had “bluestocking ways” and likely read Mary Wollstonecraft based on her membership in various lending libraries, including the Penzance Ladies Book Club, which seems a little too easy, but otherwise sticks to what we can reasonably know or assume. She tells us about Emily’s attendance at church; her time spent in Keighley, where she borrowed books; and her famous wanderings on the moors with her siblings and her mastiff mix, Keeper.To that end, Lutz wisely keeps out of the debate surrounding what Emily may or may not have done to get sent away to school at age 17. Emily and the other Brontës, Lutz reminds us, had a social existence in Haworth and in Yorkshire more generally. They weren’t, as is often depicted, merely hermits living alone on the heath.The mythology of Emily as a free-range “moor nymph” was partly started by Charlotte in her editor’s preface to the posthumous second edition of Wuthering Heights. In her grief, and perhaps also because of an inability to communicate what Emily was really like, Charlotte depicted her genius sister as a kind of feral savant—a “native and nursling of the moors,” as she put it—who was somehow otherworldly.Lutz seeks to remind us that this was not the case by returning Emily to the domestic sphere as well as the “wild workshop” of West Yorkshire that she loved so much. Her Emily is not some weird sprite haunting the landscape, but something even stranger: a real woman. [...]The point is not to bring Emily Brontë down to earth by claiming (as the 2019 show Dickinson did to that later Emily) that she was just like us, all anachronistic feelings and hidden Sapphic longings, but to bring her down to an earth that was uniquely hers. Lutz’s book does just that. Her Emily is a thrillingly earthbound creature, as individual and ultimately as inaccessible as we all are. To think we know her or understand her would be reductive. But to realize that we don’t fully know or understand her is to realize that she is just like us.After reading This Dark Night, I don’t feel like I really know Emily Brontë any better, but I do think I understand her world a bit better—her terroir, the environment she was steeped in and that infuses her verse and prose. Lutz does not try to explain Emily—rather, she leaves her where she wanted to be, on her own. Lutz doesn’t make her do anything; instead, she wonders often about how Emily might have found her eventual role as the keeper of the Haworth parsonage, but she is careful not to put words in her subject’s mouth.We don’t learn much that’s new about Emily herself, but we do learn what it would have been like to be in her world. Anyone looking for easy answers to Wuthering Heights, a brutal and confusing book, or its strange author will be disappointed—but those readers for whom the mystery is the point will certainly be pleased. (Sarah Chihaya)
It is undeniably easy to frown upon adaptations, especially when considering the strange sense of protectiveness that can come with well-loved texts. But acknowledging this personal adoration is exactly where a fairer perspective lies. It's as Fennell justified with her use of quotation marks in “Wuthering Heights”, these interpretations often never claim to be replicas-they are intimate responses. When speaking with The Guardian, Fennell admitted: “I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious. It’s very personal material for everyone.” It was this raw and honest confession that could make one more inclined to celebrate Fennell’s ability to share her own interpretation with so many people. And it would be unfair to say that it hasn’t done the novel’s legacy good, despite tainting some fans' feelings. Sales of Wuthering Heights have surged dramatically amidst the controversial film release, with The Guardian reporting in February of this year that there had been a 496% rise in sales in the UK. Surely, one of the most alluring elements about truly great literature is its ability to spark conversation. Wuthering Heights’ refusal to be read the same way by any two people is exactly what makes it so long-lasting. As Fennell said: “I can't make something for everyone”. (Delilah Salway-Roberts)
As cosy season creeps in, my personal recommendation would be Haworth. Known as the home of the Brontë’s, and the backdrop of the iconic film Wild Child, Haworth is the perfect place for a breath of fresh air. Here you can explore the history of the Brontës, stop for a hot chocolate at The Old Post Office, mooch around the independent shops, and go for a countryside hike at golden hour. (Evie Bettison)
Heathcliff and Catherine from ‘Wuthering Heights’Of all the classic romance novels, Wuthering Heights has the most distinctly gothic feel. What’s more romantic than a character who’s so in love, he (spoiler alert!) begs his lover’s ghost to haunt him? Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi took on the roles of Cathy and Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s steamy 2026 adaptation of Brontë’s novel. Their divisive costumes proved you don’t have to go period-accurate to convey all the star-crossed drama. (Julia Guerra, Natalie Arroyo Camacho, Emily Kelleher, and Bailey Bujnosek)
By Amy M. King, Tugce Okay (illustrations)Andrews McMeel PublishingISBN: 9798881613952 October 2026
The first-ever botanical guide to the Brontës—discover the heather, roses, and trees that shape Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and more, with 60 enchanting natural-history illustrations.The Brontë novels are famous for their gothic atmospheres and untamed landscapes—but the plants that root these stories are just as vivid as their characters. A Brontë Botany is the first-ever botanical guide to the works of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë.Guiding readers from the wild heather of the Yorkshire moors to the cultivated roses of manor-house gardens, Victorian-literature scholar Amy King reveals how flora functions as a living, symbolic force of emotion and fate.The first botanical companion to the BrontësA fresh lens on Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and more60 full-color natural-history illustrations by Tugce OkayA smart, display-worthy gift for readers and plant loversWander the moors and gardens of the Brontës—and rediscover the novels through their flowers.
If you see one adaptation of Wuthering Heights made in 2026, do yourself a favour and make it Becca Hirani’s.Based on the title, the trailer and even the opening scenes, you would be forgiven for thinking that this was something in the vein of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, but this is no mere pastiche, and neither does it waste time licking the wallpaper. Yes, it’s over the top, but so was the love of which Emily Brontë wrote. There’s a lot of blood, and not just from childbirth, but this seems a fitting way to acknowledge the very real – and often mundane – brutality underlying the novel. All Hirani has done is to turn up the volume on what was already there.She makes just one major adjustment. Here, though Cathy has still succumbed to the same fate, Heathcliff has refused to fade conveniently out of the narrative. Even in 1832, and certainly by 2026, minoritised people have been doing that for long enough. Here, it is a living man who meets Cathy’s ghost upon the moor, and rather than becoming like her, he strives to make her like him again.Enter Mr. Lockwood (Ross Townsend-Green), the earnest gentleman to whom the original tale was told, riding across the moors on his white horse, Harper. With his dapper clothing and anxious manners, he is the perfect archetype of the polite bystander in a Jane Austen adaptation, a man who has spent his whole life surrounded by people who think and behave in the same way that he does. In Wuthering Heights, he is a fish out of water. His first encounter with Heathcliff (Sky Cheema) is a tangle of faux pas, and yet he experiences some kind of fascination that makes him feel compelled to go back a second time. The precise nature of this is unclear. Perhaps it really is all about his notion of proper behaviour. Perhaps there is a dark kind of magic at work, or perhaps it is something that he would find it even harder to countenance.Next to Lockwood, Heathcliff looks as if he belongs to a different different kind of film, but perhaps he always belonged not just to a different culture but to a different genre, breaking into the book as he did when, so far as English Gothic readers of the time understood things, he had no right to be there. This is only the second time he has been played as a racially marginalised person (after Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version), and this is probably the closest he has looked to Brontë’s intention, but equally important is Cheema’s ability to fully inhabit the character, giving him both the physical power and the weight of charisma that the role demands. In flashback scenes and in Lockwood’s strange hallucinatory glimpses of the past, we see him as the unwanted, sometimes overtly abused outsider, but we also see him able to approach the world on his own terms. They say the best revenge is living well, but for those who have empathised with his plight over the decades, seeing him get a bit of actual revenge is pretty satisfying.Again, this doesn’t so much stray from the plot as enlarge it and explore a particular set of interpretations. Opening on a dark and stormy night, Hirani makes it clear that she feels no obligation to tread lightly. This is the Gothic writ large. Like Mārama, it’s full of fury at racial injustice and the violence inherent in the class system. In giving Heathcliff space to be all of himself without the constraints of that system, it also creates space for Cathy. Elle O’Hara portrays her as someone simply too big for the world in which she is trapped. In the few moments that she she and Cheema share the screen, other characters become irrelevant, painfully aware of their own lack of purpose. Only Nelly (Nicola Wright) seems to retain a sense of herself – a narrator’s duty, even if she only occasionally gets to tell tales here. This is, in the end, a love story, and we have to believe in that to engage with it fully, to root for love when it and madness become one.Townsend-Green deserves praise for navigating all this as a man who seems, at first, to be a figure of fun, prim and ineffectual, reminiscent in some ways of poor Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man. Kept at the centre of things, though bitterly aware of his own lack of control, Lockwood finds his body wracked by fever as he is haunted and confounded by the many ghosts of the troubled house. At night, the windows rattle. Candles fail to behave as they usually do onscreen, and offer only small pools of light. Cathy, in a ragged grey dress, is never far away from him, and each glimpse brings him terror. It’s a hard-hearted viewer who won’t root for him too, or sympathise with his efforts to stand up for justice – even if some understand that the context of systemic oppression makes that far from simple.The young heroes of An American Werewolf In London once assured us that Heathcliff didn’t howl, but here that doesn’t seem out of the question. Gently skirting the edge of comedy, of camp, Hirani’s film will delight and appal in equal measure, but all of it deservedly. (Jennie Kermode)
Jack : Did you hear that?David : I heard that.Jack : What was it?David : Could be a lot of things.Jack : Yeah?David : A coyote.Jack : There aren't any coyotes in England.David : The Hound of the Baskervilles.Jack : Pecos Bill.David : Heathcliff.Jack : Heathcliff didn't howl!David : No, but he was on the moors.
Emerald Fennell’s provocative reinterpretation of Emily Brontë's literary classic, Wuthering Heights reimagines the gothic romance drama centering on Catherine Earnshaw and her complicated relationship with adopted orphan Heathcliff. As the two grow up together on the titular estate, they develop a deep, passionate love for each other that evolves into an obsession, upending everyone’s lives and futures. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi play the star-crossed couple, with Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, Martin Clunes, Ewan Mitchell, and more as other key characters.Of the 35 (or so) screen adaptations of Brontë's famous novel, Fennell’s bold and revisionist version has arguably had the most polarizing reviews. The film has earned criticism from many viewers for the contemporary spin and erotic exaggeration of its narrative and characterizations, which push it further from the original romance classic. However, Wuthering Heights is commendable for its stunning visuals, costumes, and stellar lighting, which compensate for the lack of depth and charm in its storytelling to some degree. (Remus Noronha)
3. Jane Eyre (2011)Here is where we were first introduced to the famous “madwoman in the attic”. ‘Jane Eyre’ has been adapted many times, but the 2011 version is a good starting point. It chronicles the life of the titular heroine, especially her move to the secluded Thornfield Hall where she takes a job as a governess and falls for her employer, Rochester. But soon, she starts to discover twisted and dark secrets about the family she’s stepping into. (Ritrisha Mondal)
You could call the amount of trouble Emma gets herself into comical, but I think she is incredibly charming. There were multiple different moments where I had to put down the book because I was giggling too much at what was going on, and I honestly think my favorite part of this book was the escapade to get the stolen copy of Jane Eyre back from Emma’s former school. (Mattie Lugar)
by Sarah GordonWednesday 14th - Saturday 17th OctoberEvenings 7:30pmSaturday Matinee 2:30pmVenue: Coach House TheatreUnderdog: The Other Otther Brontë, which ran to much acclaim at the National Theatre in 2024, is about the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, three novelists whose uneven fame has survived the test of time.Told in a contemporary, “tongue in cheek” way, this new play dives into the difficulties of women in being taken seriously as writers in the early 19th century. Society had a very rigid view of the roles of women, and being novelists was not within that realm.It is a very intimate look at three remarkable women living in a time that made their otherness stand out uncomfortably. Underdog is a fascinating examination of the three Brontë sisters and their short lives, their struggles and successes, and Charlotte’s strong will to succeed above all else.This is not a story about well-behaved women but about the power of words. It’s about sisters and sisterhood, love and jealousy, support and competition.
The critically acclaimed film that marked Australian actress Frances O'Connor’s directorial debut is officially coming to Netflix this month. Set in 19th-century Yorkshire, England, the film tells an emotional story about one of the most popular classic authors, offering a more fictionalized account than a straightforward biopic. It premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival in September, then Warner Bros. Pictures released it theatrically in the UK the next month, and indie label Bleecker Street released it in the U.S. in 2023.Often described as Little Women meets Black Swan, Emily partly focuses on English writer Emily Brontë, a fiercely reclusive woman who channeled her intensity into writing her literary masterpiece, Wuthering Heights. Like Little Women, it features a sibling dynamic where a rebellious, free-spirited sister aims to become a classic author while navigating life in a small town. As for the Black Swan twist, Emily delves into darker themes, highlighting the heavy, isolating toll of raw creativity and genius. Viewers gain insight into Brontë's troubled, anxious mind as her internal passion, mental struggles, and defiance of societal norms gradually shape her reality.On October 21, 2026, just two weeks from now, Emily will be available on Netflix, marking four years since its theatrical debut. This release is expected to attract new viewers, particularly those who became interested in Brontë after the 2026 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. (Lade Omotade)
One adaptation particularly stands out because of its highly controversial reception, releasing a day before Valentine's Day. As the year's most divisive book-to-screen adaptation so far, Wuthering Heights drew immediate criticism for its unfaithful reimagining of Emily Brontë's 1847 novel, particularly for Heathcliff's casting, the character's romanticized portrayal, and major plot omissions.The controversy ultimately sparked public curiosity, driving the film to $241.7 million worldwide against an $80 million budget and pushing the novel to the top of the Goodreads most-read classics chart. After a successful theatrical run, Wuthering Heights found its way to streaming, which most recently includes Prime Video, where it became officially available to watch on October 2, 2026. The romantic adaptation currently streams there for viewers who missed it in theaters or want to revisit the reimagined gothic classic. (Lade Omotade)
El planteamiento conecta con diversas tradiciones, desde el gótico femenino literario, quizá con Jane Eyre en el recuerdo, hasta un cierto thriller psicológico donde se cultiva la tensión y la incertidumbre sin necesidad de que el contador de cadáveres se multiplique. (Ignasi Franch) (Translation)
The Brontë Parsonage Museum has also recorded a rise in visitors.Rebecca Yorke, the museum’s director, said visitor numbers had increased by 25 per cent during the past financial year.Ms Yorke said: “The new Wuthering Heights film has been a big part of that, and we have been careful to maximise its success at the parsonage.”Emerald Fennell and Margot Robbie visited the parsonage in 2025, while the museum’s social media following doubled over the same period.Ms Yorke said: “All of these things help put Haworth on the map.”The museum also sold 4,808 copies of Wuthering Heights during the last financial year, an increase of 80 per cent compared with the previous year.Ms Yorke said: “The Brontës are still relevant, through film and social media.” (Daisy Couture)
A Rose Theatre, Mercury Theatre Colchester, and Storyhouse Chester production in association with Northern StageBased on Sally Cookson, Mike Akers and the Original Company’s adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novelDirected by 2025 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award-winner Lily DybleRose Theatre, Kingston, London13 October - 24 OctoberOne woman’s fight for a life that is worthy of her courage and a love that is worthy of her heart.Orphaned as a young girl, the passionate and sensitive Jane longs to escape the clutches of her cruel aunt.Freedom beckons when she is offered the job of a governess in the house of the brooding and secretive Mr Rochester.As intrigue turns to attraction, Jane finds herself drawn in by Rochester’s mercurial charm. But when the truth finally comes out, she will be forced to choose between the man she wants, and the woman she wants to be.
It can also be difficult to compare classics to each other because today, people will use certain classics to measure their greatness beside another piece of media to review it. Classics, especially when discussing literature and film, create the taste that people use to judge and criticize them. Someone may enjoy “Pride and Prejudice,” yet not enjoy “Wuthering Heights” simply because of the writing style, the period or the characters. (Veronica Dallas)
Vanshika Mohnani, president of Wordcraft, Literary society of Ramjas College, notes, “I feel our generation is not ignorant of things, they have this hunger of knowing everything. Even these trending bookstagram reels and other videos make people interested in reading more. I have read a lot of classics like Mrs Dalloway, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, Macbeth, Jane Eyre, 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankenstein.” (Sara Siddiqui)
They cite two favorite works of classical literature, Murasaki Shikibu’s “The Tale of Genji” and Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” as famous examples of love stories that also reveal deep hierarchical divisions within society.Similarly, Yamazaki’s characters often struggle to forge relationships within the constraints of Japanese culture. (Kris Kosaka)
Regardless, Scodelario finally managed to prove to herself that she could do a period piece, but only after her agent convinced her to watch Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, and she met the director for the drink that she agreed to Wuthering Heights. She said, “I really wanted to open up and tell her everything about me. And the film she’s created isn’t a period film: it’s a new genre that is timeless”.Unlike Emma, which caused the actor to feel she didn’t match the aesthetic of a Victorian literature adaptation, Arnold’s Wuthering Heights was gritty and realistic, but the crucial thing for Scodelario had to do with casting, as she said, “The biggest thing I think Andrea has done was keeping the characters young. If you fall in love at that age, it’s very different to falling in love later”.Comparing these feelings to her fervid two-year affair with Skins co-star Jack O’Connell, she understood exactly what Cathy was going through, similar to her relating to Effy’s experiences, about which she said, “I was completely in love with him. If he’d told me to jump off a bridge, I would have. We were so young and going through so much, it was a strange togetherness we had. It was intense and magical and horrible.” (Gaby Shedwick)
York Settlement Community Players presentby Sarah GordonDirector: Claire MorleyWith Lara Stafford, Jess Murray, Millie Rhodes, Nick Patrick Jones, Jon Cook, Maggie Smales, and Pamela Gourley.Tuesday 13 to Saturday 17 October.Theatre@41, MonkgateCharlotte Brontë has a confession about how one sister became an idol, and the other became known as the third sister. You know the one. No, not that one. The other, other one… Anne.York Settlement Community Players present Sarah Gordon’s new and exciting play, which premiered at The National Theatre in 2024. Underdog is an irreverent retelling of the life and legend of the Brontë sisters like you’ve never seen them before!This is not a story about well-behaved women. This is a story about the power of words. It’s about sisters and sisterhood, love and jealousy, support and competition.An Amateur production presented by special arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd.
Women in Texas were once in the thrall of Charlotte Brontë and her literary masterpiece Jane Eyre. Back in the mid-1800s, Texans, along with the reading public as a whole, made the novel an immediate bestseller when it was published in 1848.Seven years later, a schoolteacher organized the Texas Brontë Club, a milestone that created a literary gathering place and boasted a lending library that years later evolved into the Victoria Public Library. Though it ultimately became a civic organization that did good works in communities, books continued to hold a prominent place in the society’s programs. The group thrived well into the 20th century, retaining its standing as the oldest literary group in the state and even once hosting a lecture by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.Fast forward to 2026. Today the great Victorian-era romance novel with a pioneering feminist message has earned a new place in Texas history —an infamous one— with four school districts banning it as unsuitable for younger readers. This is happening, it’s worth noting, at the same time that China made Jane Eyre compulsory reading for 14 and 15 year olds. Why? As a counter to social media and its touting of “materialistic culture and money.”You’re not alone if the Texas ban on Jane Eyre is a head scratcher. After all, the book is consistently near the top of major literary canons, has been on school reading lists, likely for over a century, has no steamy content at all, and has been adapted for as many as 25 to 30 movies and television series, most rated PG. [...]So why did four school districts in Texas decide to remove this celebrated, classic novel from its libraries, picking up the aging thread of distaste from Victorian critics?The 19th century’s favorite orphan is likely a casualty of the Texas legislature. Since the passage of the SB 13 law in 2025, school administrators and librarians have found it impossible to confidently interpret the labels “profane” and “indecent” — part of the new, lower bar for what makes a book bannable in Texas. As a result, some districts have placed restrictions on anything written for adults, including classics.Restrictions across four districts include banned pending investigation (removed from shelves, sometimes indefinitely); restricted to upper grade levels; and limiting only to AP English students.Some people will say age restrictions are normal, even good sense. The case of Jane Eyre shows the harm these measures can do. Young readers who become lifelong readers often benefit from reading above grade level, reading challenging prose that gives them a window into history. Denying them that opportunity limits their horizons.“Generations of young people, especially young women, have discovered a love of classic literature through the works of the Brontë sisters, reading above grade level to do so,” said Philomena Polefone, a senior manager of PEN’s Freedom to Read team and an author of the recent report. “Jane Eyre is a book that inspires young people to love reading and brings them into the library.What continues to be clear during Banned Books Week and every week is that book bans pose a threat not only to literacy and education but to democracy and pluralism.At PEN America, we believe that all students — and all parents — benefit when kids are given more choices of what to read, and encouraged to read freely. To those who spend time concocting dubious reasons to ban books, or (this being the 21st century) having AI do it for them, perhaps it’s time to heed the advice of Jane Eyre’s friend Helen Burns, who says: “Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” (Suzanne Trimel)
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
Caird’s justification for this reduction is compelling. In an interview, he described Jane Eyre as “fundamentally an intimate, emotional, small-scale work”, pointing to the novel’s first-person narration and its intensely interior focus.But Jane Eyre is not a “small-scale work”. Certainly, Jane’s journey takes her through only a handful of Yorkshire houses and a school. Yet Brontë’s imagination repeatedly exceeds these confines. The novel conjures supernatural forces, wild landscapes and sweeping moorland. Its emotional world is equally expansive, moving from the warmth of passion to the terror of fire and freezing wastes. Its Yorkshire landscapes convey a strange, almost supernatural power. The result is a novel that constantly stretches beyond the limits of Jane’s confined domestic world. [...]Taking my seat at Southwark Playhouse, I was struck by how effectively Morgan Large’s set balances intimacy with gothic grandeur. It captures the small scale Caird sought for this chamber production, while suggesting a much wider and eerier world beyond the stage.The palette is black and white. The set backdrop is a video screen showing a slowly moving landscape of clouds, bare trees and wintry moorland. There is even a bit of mist rising.Stage right and left are clothes horses draped with everyday cloaks, pristine white shirts, nightshirts and caps. These have a prosaic quality and bring the audience close to a theatrical version of Brönte’s domestic realism. However, even these well-starched clothes are imbued with a ghostly quality, bereft as they are of wearers and lit in sharp contrast to the black backdrop. It is a clever combination of the ghostly and the mundane, which renders the most familiar things uncanny.Jane Eyre: a Musical abounds in excellent performances, exciting staging and orchestration, but despite the verve of the ensemble cast and the vocal crescendos, the heart rarely skips a beat in fear – and certainly not in gothic terror.This is largely due to the awkwardness and confusion in the representation of Bertha, who is little more than an obstacle in Jane and Rochester’s romance. Played by Hannah Lindsay, she appears veiled in pale lace wedding clothes, her face obscured. Even when she attacks Rochester, Lindsay’s long blonde curls hide her face.Brönte’s creation of the violent, swollen-featured, monstrous Bertha who also has bad breath and hasn’t brushed her hair is problematic to a modern audience. She is Creole and she is insane. What may once have appeared as a gothic representation of madness, now raises difficult questions about race, colonialism, gender and confinement.Even without having read Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) or the seminal feminist study The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), modern audiences approach Bertha with a different understanding of colonial history than that of Brontë’s time.However, the answer is not to erase Bertha as a gothic force, which this production does. At one point we even see Bertha carrying a doll. If directors John Caird and Megan McGinnis choose to depict her as a childish innocent our sympathies must lie with her – but this sympathy goes nowhere and she is still removed as an obstacle to the romantic plot.Jane Eyre is so rich in imagery and intricate plot that three hours can never do it justice. However, more could have been done in this production.The musical offers a touching love story and a moving tale of a young woman’s struggles. Yet the novel’s much darker narrative is absent. Brontë creates this shadow narrative through gothic elements including dreams, Bessie’s local folklore and folk song, premonitions and monstrous night visitations, mysterious voices and uncanny laughter. A reference to Bessie’s folksong about the “orphan child” crossing the cold moors could have enriched the music.Most crucially, Brontë mirrors Bertha and Jane throughout the novel, but this mirroring is largely absent from the production. That is particularly striking because of the set’s prominent bird imagery. A plinth around three sides of the stage bears Jane’s declaration to Rochester: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” [...]The production’s confused portrayal of Bertha leaves little room for this gothic threat. Yet the novel repeatedly uses images of wildness and savagery to align the two women. These connections matter, particularly when Bertha’s role is so heavily downplayed.The musical misses the alignment of the two women. In Sweet Liberty, Jane (played beautifully by Charlie Burn) sings of “boundless skies” and declares: “I will fly.” Yet there is no reference to Bertha, the woman literally confined at Thornfield who ultimately flies from its roof. Bertha has no voice, and she certainly does not get a song. (Sophie Gilmartin)
Jane Eyre (2011)It's quite possible that Cary Joji Fuku[n]aga's 2011 adaptation of "Jane Eyre," the massively influential dark romance written by Charlotte Brontë, flew under your radar upon its release. If you love "Verity," though, this is another pick — like "Rebecca" — where you can clearly see the story's influence on writers like Colleen Hoover. Mia Wasikowska plays the titular Jane, who endured a difficult childhood as an orphan and thinks that her life will be forever changed when, as an adult, she meets the dashing and wealthy Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender) while working as a governess at his property of Thornfield Hall. Despite Mr. Rochester's apparent betrothal to the beautiful Blanche Ingram (Imogen Poots), Jane finds herself developing feelings for him, and he returns them ardently.There's just one small problem, and it has to do with an attic and a spate of small fires — and even though "Jane Eyre" is an old story that's probably familiar to most people, we won't get into the specifics just in case you don't know how this wonderfully twisted story ends. Wasikowska and Fassbender are excellent and flanked by great performers like Dame Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, Sally Hawkins, Tamzin Merchant, and Simon McBurney, making this adaptation of "Jane Eyre" a worthy watch once you're finished with "Verity." (Nina Starner)
The divisive adaptation from the director of Saltburn and Promising Young Woman is finally on Prime Video for anyone looking for something other than horror this October. How does one even begin to describe this lavish, arguably ridiculous film? You kinda need to see it for yourself and decide what you think of the work of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in a movie that equal numbers of people loved and hated when it dropped in February of this year. (Brian Tallerico)
Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëThe only published novel by Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights is the beautifully crafted, haunting story of the enthusiastic love between the tortured Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of Heathcliff’s benefactor.First published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, Wuthering Heights was remarkable for its unflinching and honest portrayal of obsessive love and its accompanying cruelty, which was out of character for novels of the era.It’s been adapted for the stage and screen many times, most recently as a major motion picture starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.For me the adaptation was a step too far away from the original.I love Margot but she can no longer pass as a 20-year-old, and the wardrobe was not something you would have seen from a wealthy family in the Yorkshire Moors.There must be an authentic honesty to our classics, and if you do want to watch an adaptation, I would go for the Tom Hardy 2009 version.I give this latest adaptation 5/10 and the 2009 adaptation 8.5/10. (Julie Chessman)
Sense and Sensibility (2026) proves you don't need a varnished scene of oral sex backed by the latest Charli XCX track to demonstrate an undying passion between lovers. Georgia Oakley's Austen adaptation has everything Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights (2026) lacked. (Alice Lewis)
Saturday 10th October, 11:00 amIlkley Grammar School, Cowpasture Rd, Ilkley LS29 8TR, United KingdomJoin us for a book group discussion led by writer and Programme Manager at First Story Naomi Frisby on the gothic masterpiece Wuthering Heights. Read the book, talk about it with your friends or your regular book group, then come to this Saturday morning session to share your thoughts with other booklovers.
SHEShe lives on a moor in the north.She lives alone.Spring opens like a blade there.I travel all day on trains and bring a lot of books—some for my mother, some for meincluding The Collected Works Of Emily Brontë.This is my favourite author.Also my main fear, which I mean to confront.Whenever I visit my motherI feel I am turning into Emily Brontë,my lonely life around me like a moor,my ungainly body stumping over the mud flats with a look of transformationthat dies when I come in the kitchen door.What meat is it, Emily, we need?
Glass, Irony and God, Carson's 1995 book, features the celebrated poem The Glass Essay, which is more than 30 pages long and tells the story of a love affair coming to an end through a reading of Emily Brontë's poetry.In the Nobel Prize ceremony, it was praised by the Swedish Academy for demonstrating "the potential of the long poem where genre boundaries are seen to blur." (Talia Kliot)
Glass, Irony & God (1995)This collection of three narrative poems contains “The Glass Essay,” a 36-page epic that interweaves the end of a romantic relationship with musings on Emily Brönte, whom Carson describes as a perpetual “whacher” — a deliberate misspelling — who constantly observes the English moors that inspired her novel “Wuthering Heights.” In Brönte, Carson finds kinship and a means of verbalizing her heartbreak. The author Anthony Doerr has referred to “The Glass Essay” as his favorite poem, writing that “it feels to me like a thousand floodlights switching on.” (Ash Wu)
The 1990s brought some of her most celebrated work. "The Glass Essay," from Glass, Irony, and God (1995), shows what the long poem can do when genre lines blur. It is a verse narrative about grief and unrequited love.A woman abandoned by her husband travels to see her lonely mother on the moors, carrying the works of her favourite writer, Emily Brontë. Brontë's moorland and inner life are woven through the text, and the poem becomes at once a reading of Brontë and an essay on abandonment.
"You remember too much,my mother said to me recently.Why hold onto all that? And I said,Where can I put it down?"This quote is from the long, lyrical poem "The Glass Essay" published in Anne Carson's 1995 collection "Glass, Irony and God" — an entry point into the works of the 2026 Nobel Prize for Literature laureate.In the poem, the narrator explores the burden of memory and obsessive desire after a failed love affair, all while regularly reflecting on Emily Brontë — an author renowned for her intense literary depiction of destructive and passionate love in "Wuthering Heights." (Elizabeth Grenier)
Carson's wide-ranging influences, from the ancient Greeks to John Keats, Virginia Woolf and Emily Bronte, lead "to playful and ironic works that move not only between classical and modern poetry but also between different genres and art forms," Olsson said. (Pontus Lundahl)
Among the works highlighted by the Nobel Committee was The Glass Essay (1995), a long poem about a woman recovering from a failed relationship who visits her mother in the moorlands, bringing with her the writings of Emily Bronte.Olsson said the work demonstrated Carson's ability to combine poetry, storytelling and literary criticism, with the narrator's experiences becoming entwined with those of her mother and Bronte.“The poetry needs the story, and the story is in turn given energy by the leaps and scene shifts of poetry,” he said. (William Mullally)
“Reader, I married him,” opens the last chapter of “Jane Eyre”. That famous line is music to Chinese officials’ ears. Since September the Victorian-era Bildungsroman by Charlotte Brontë has become compulsory reading for every Chinese student in secondary school. The government happens to be keen to boost marriage rates and babymaking, and worries about women’s rising demand for divorces. The independent-minded heroine, Ms Eyre, who rejects two proposals before ultimately marrying and bearing a son, has a thing or two to teach young Chinese, the Communist Party thinks.By some estimates, China’s population of 1.4bn could be 250m lower by 2050. So the party, having once imposed strict limits on births, is now intensifying efforts to build a “birth-friendly society”. It isn’t doing well. In the first half of 2026 marriage rates fell by 7.5%, while divorce rates climbed by 3.9%. Last year births were at a historic low: less than half the number a decade earlier.In June the government launched a two-month campaign to crack down on microdramas that promote “money worship” and “distorted marriage values”. The wildly popular short videos often tell absurd or fantastical stories, including the popular genre of badao zongcai which involve domineering CEOs who sweep poor women off their feet (this type particularly appeals to those who think social mobility is becoming much harder in China).So why promote “Jane Eyre”? Some commenters on social media call it a prototype of badao zongcai. In the book, Ms Eyre, a governess from a poor background, captures the heart of her wealthy employer, Edward Rochester. His imperious, moody air fits that of the short-videos’ stereotype CEO. But a recent column in Beijing Daily, an official newspaper, makes the point clear: “Jane believes that love should be built on spiritual equality rather than social status, wealth or appearance. Only when two people truly love one another can they attain genuine happiness.”Some parents object to students in their mid-teens having to study a book so centred on love, Beijing Daily admits. But “Jane Eyre” is deeply ingrained in China’s literary consciousness: the first translation appeared in 1917. An adaptation of it was among the first Western films shown in China after the death of Mao in 1976. President Xi Jinping mentioned the book in 2015 during a visit to Britain. A musical version was performed in Beijing this week. Ms Eyre seemed feisty to Victorians. But she is a far cry from feminists in China today whom Mr Xi sees as a threat to procreation.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Antoinette Cosway is a Creole heiress living in 19th-century Jamaica. After Antoinette’s brother dies in a house fire, grief drives their mother mad, and Antoinette is left alone to face a hostile world. An arranged marriage brings her under the control of the cruel and capricious Mr. Rochester who renames her Bertha, isolates her from the outside world and eventually takes her to his native England, where a dark future awaits. Published in 1966, “Wide Sargasso Sea” is a classic in its own right, bringing immense humanity and empathy to the “madwoman in the attic” of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.”
For as long as film has been around, people have been anxious about what it can do. To understand this anxiety, look to literature: a medium we have been anxious about for a much longer time. In The Republic, Plato cautions that “the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts. . . . A young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal.” Over two thousand years later, Charlotte Brontë wrote a similar warning beside Shakespeare and Byron’s names on her list of recommended reading for a friend. “Don’t be startled at the names,” she cautioned Ellen Nussey. “You will know how to choose the good, and to avoid the evil.” But should she get waylaid, Brontë discouraged her from reading the comedies. In her own folios, she tore them out.Notice her precision: read Shakespeare, but skip the comedies. She is familiar with what she critiques. To decide what not to read, one must first know what is in those books – and then, having done so, decide whether or not to put them down. (Iris Chen)
'Wuthering Heights'The Adaptation Was Accused of Turning a Dark Story Into a Traditional RomanceWhy Wuthering Heights Was Divisive: From the second news broke that Jacob Elordi was cast as Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights was accused of whitewashing its lead character. With each new piece of promotional material, it became clear that director Emerald Fennell's take on Wuthering Heights would differ significantly from the original source material, opting for a more straightforward forbidden romance that forgoes the book's traditional ending. This earned the film criticism at release, but Wuthering Heights has so far proved to be the biggest hit of WB's 2026 slate, making a reported profit of $40 million (via Variety).Why It's Worth Watching: The criticism that Wuthering Heights isn't a faithful adaptation of the book is valid, but no film adaptation has chosen to depict the book's second half, so that fault is not exclusive to the 2026 version. There is something magical about seeing a female filmmaker be given the freedom and budget by a studio to turn a deeply personal passion project into a major studio production. In the end, Wuthering Heights is a gorgeous film in terms of production design and cinematography, with a fantastic set of original songs by Charlie [sic] XCX. (Richard Fink)
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